Year

Typhoon Haiyan, or Yolanda as it is known locally, the strongest typhoon ever recorded at landfall, ripped through the central Philippines on November 8, 2013. It caused devastation on an unprecedented scale—roofs were ripped off, villages were flattened, livelihoods were swept away, and a tsunami-like storm surge claimed more than 6,300 lives and displaced some four million people.*

Over the past four months, the Thai military has used heightened restrictions and coercive tactics to pressure some 4,700 ethnic Lao Hmong refugees, who claim to have fled violence and persecution in Laos, to renounce their claims for protection and accept a forced return to Laos.